ANWAR: The PUF and me: How to double down on our investments

Published 5:24 am, Sunday, April 21, 2013

The promise of a university education is why I came to the United States of America from Pakistan right after high school. My mother and grandparents gave me just enough money for a plane ticket to the U.S. and the first semester’s tuition at the University of Wyoming.

My education has been the key to my success. Higher education is also the key to our nation’s prosperity — our competitive advantage stems from our great universities and the students they educate. My wife and I were lucky to send our twins to top-ranked engineering and business programs at The University of Texas at Austin five years ago. They have both graduated and are gainfully employed, happy and productive — every parent’s dream. During our children’s time at UT Austin, we saw first-hand the excellence and dedication of the faculty to student success, faculty and students creating the innovations of the future and the University serving the needs of the citizens of Texas.

We were so impressed with UT Austin that our family, including my mother, became an investor in the mission of this jewel in the heart of Texas. We helped fund the recruitment of a new drilling engineering professor with 20 years of industry experience and have committed $4 million to help build a state-of-the-art engineering building.

I not only personally donate to UT Austin, but my entire career in the oil business has contributed to funding higher education through the Permanent University Fund (PUF), which was established by the 1876 Constitution of the state of Texas to fund a “university of the first class.” The PUF takes royalties, lease payments and lease bonuses from the lands on which I have worked the last 30 years. These funds support nine universities and six health institutions in The University of Texas System and 11 universities and a health science center in the Texas A&M University System. Of the approximately 2.1 million acres in University Lands, most are located in West Texas, and our community knows just about every nook, cranny and rock.

Over the past two fiscal years, the gross payments from University Lands into the PUF have totaled $1.7 billion. And there is more coming. West Texas is experiencing unprecedented prosperity that is more than a boom. Thanks to the technology revolution in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, our region is fueling our companies and our economies, and at this point, no one in America is producing more cheap energy than West Texas.

However, increasing energy production, much less keeping production rates constant, will require even more innovation. This means Texas needs even more science and engineering to which we must devote the necessary resources. The treadmill doesn’t stop; it takes hard running just to stay in the same place, and we must run faster if we want to continue leading the world. The next wave of technology will need to be created by the brightest and most innovative scientists and engineers the state of Texas has to offer, especially as they partner with industry. These bright minds will come from our state’s great universities.

A smart, innovative workforce is an investment, and it all starts with education. In the cycle of education, workforce development, technology creation and energy production, none of these elements can exist without the other, and, most importantly, we know none is possible without the higher education offered at universities like UT Austin.

To continue this path of prosperity, UT Austin plans to build a new 430,000-square-foot building, the Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC), which will create a hub of interdisciplinary engineering critical to the future success of our state and our country. This new space will provide more hands-on education so engineers are ready to contribute to companies like mine from day one.

Of the 7,800 engineering students in UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering, a third take their first job in the energy industry. Those graduates are one of the reasons the Permian Basin produces 80 percent of Texas’ oil and provides so much money to the PUF. It only seems appropriate that the PUF reinvests that money in science, technology, engineering and innovation.

Our family has personally chosen to donate to the EERC, and we hope to see more PUF funds directed to this transformative facility. The engineering leaders that will be educated in the EERC will drive our economy for generations to come. I may not be a Longhorn, but I am a Texan, and this building is for Texas and for our future.